


us lovely broken things

by Fangirl_from_Philly



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: All the Starks stay in winterfell AU, Bran is a good brother, Dany isn't crazy, F/M, Jon is a good brother, Post Canon Kinda, Sansa is Queen in the North, Sansa is slowly healing, That's not really relevant to the story but it is important to me, The Stark family is slowly healing, Theon and Sansa are very much in love and very insecure, Theon is a momma's boy and I will not be taking criticism on this point, Theon is slowly healing, Theonsa Yule 2020, Winter Solstice in the North is inspired by traditional Germanic Yule, Yara is a good sister, arya is a good sister, mentions of and flashbacks to canon abuse and torture, theon lives au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:08:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28577250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirl_from_Philly/pseuds/Fangirl_from_Philly
Summary: After he recovered from his near deadly wound from the Night King, Theon returns to the Iron Islands to support Yara in her transition to power. In the six years that he is there, Sansa successfully negotiates Northern Independence with Daenerys, making her Queen in the North. As the Winter Solstice approaches, marking the midpoint of winter and the slow return of the sun, Yara sends Theon on what is technically a diplomatic mission to secure trade and allyship with the newly independent North, but she made it clear to Theon that he had better stop pining and ask to stay, no matter how broken he may feelAs Sansa stresses over preparing Winterfell for the Solstice celebration as well as the return of the man she has been in love with for years, the encroaching panic and venerability send her spirally back to her time in King's Landing and the Vale, feeling overwhelmed and powerless and undeserving of love.(Also known as: Theon and Sansa panic over their feelings and have trouble communicating to their sibling's annoyance.)
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters (Background), Meera Reed/Bran Stark (Background), Stark Family - Relationship, Theon Greyjoy & Yara Greyjoy, Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37
Collections: Theonsa Yuletide Gift Exchange





	us lovely broken things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wastingyourarrows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastingyourarrows/gifts).



> Happy Yule! This is for the lovely wastingyourarrows. I hope you enjoy it! Also there is a playlist that I made for it that you can find here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2BhifudAuMP9slGeQJjMFa?si=VNtaOyKlRC-VafKuw8-WGQ
> 
> This chapter isn't the most winter-y but it increases in the next chapters I promise!

“Yara, are you sure you want me to leave?” Theon asked again, his eyes darting between the chest he was packing and where his sister stood leaning against the doorframe of his room. Though she wasn’t wearing the driftwood crown and her usual leathers, as she was wont to do in Pyke’s family quarters, she looked no less regal, even in her loose tunic and soft pants, with her back straight and her arms crossed.

“ _Yes_ , Theon,” she rolled her eyes, moving into the room to sit in one of the chairs by the fireplace and gesturing for him to take the other. For all the coarseness of her tone and movements, she didn’t take the chair she knew he preferred, which was covered in cushions and closer to the fireplace. The comfort still felt like luxury, no matter how long it had been. “We are safe. It’s been over a year since the last time some half-wit, cock-for-brains tried to take the crown from me and all of the Isles know I have no compunctions about using my axe on anyone, noble blood or not,” Yara said frankly, as she had several times before. “It’s been nearly six years since it all ended and no one is going to question my right to rule, especially since I’m managing the Isles far better than anyone in recent memory.”

“Low bar, that,” Theon snorted, thinking derisively of his own incompetent father and down-right mad uncle. Yara chuckled darkly at that, her thoughts likely straying along the same lines as his own. “Still, are you sure you want to send _me_?” He asked, looking at the fire instead of his sister, his hands unconsciously tracing the scars on his arm. Some days he could still feel the flesh being cut away, bit by bit – he did not remember many detail about that time, not in his waking at least, but he vividly remembers watching his tattoos being cut away, the ones his mother had given him, that marked him as Ironborn and her son, the ones that would give him access to the Drowned God’s halls should he have perished. Yara had been with him when he replaced them, but nothing would ever take away the hurt he had felt in that moment, watching the last thing his mother had given him getting stripped away.

Yara grabbed his hands in her own, the callouses on her rough palms grounding him in the present. “There is no one I trust more to do this. Even if it weren’t Winterfell, you would be the person I asked to represent the Isles. You aren’t what he tried to make you,” she assured him, her voice far softer than she would ever allow it to be before her anyone else. “But it is Winterfell,” she continued, her voice shifting playfully, “And you having been pining for the entire time since you left.”

Theon sputtered and coughed, feeling blood rush to is face, but he didn’t try to retort, knowing it would be a lost cause. Yara had been interchangeably teasing him about his feelings and pushing him to act on them since he returned to the Isles to support her as she claimed power. Yara smirked at him, clearly enjoying his discomfort. She let him catch his breath before she continued, more serious now, “Besides, beyond your lovelorn pining, we need this deal. I respect Daenerys and the deal we made with her, but the North is its own entity now, and one with copious amounts of high-quality wood. You know the damage Euron did to the fleet and if we want to establish ourselves as traders, we need ships that aren’t built for war. A deal with the North will give us enough wood to completely rebuild the fleet and create a new fleet of merchant ships.” Yara sighed, rubbing a hand over her face and leaning further back in the chair. Theon knew how heavily this all weighed on her. Convincing the rest of the Ironborn that trading was the best way forward was a mixed bag. Many had been glad at the thought of no longer losing family to raiding, but still more clung to the old ways and the idea of the Iron Price. He knew she needed this deal to work to keep her grip on the Isles and the progress they had made. This only added to his doubt. He was known to the Starks, yes, but the North had a long memory and his ill-advised capture of Winterfell and what he had done to Bran and Rickon had not happened all that long ago. For all that he wanted to go back, to see _her_ again, he wasn’t sure he would be wanted. Not after all that he had done and what had been done to him.

He didn’t know how to tell Yara all of this, though he had been trying since she told him she was sending him to Winterfell to make this deal. “Yara,” he sighed, trying to put what he knew into the one sigh.

“Don’t start,” Yara warned sternly, looking him in the eyes. “I trust you to do this, I know you will do it well, and beyond that I want you to be happy and you will never truly be happy here, not when you are in love with the Queen in the North. You’re going – and if everything goes well, you will be staying there, too,” she said with a small smile. “I’ll miss you at the Solstice celebration, but from what I’ve heard, the Solstice is quite something in the North. Tell me about it when you write to tell me you’re going to stay,” Yara told me, the smile on her face taking a sadder tinge.

“Yara, I’m not going to just leave you here –” Theon started, but Yara cut him off.

“You can and you will,” she said firmly, her voice the same as it is when she captains a ship – there was no room for no doubt or questions in her tone. “I want you to be happy, little brother,” she said softly, reaching over and tracing the tattoo on his wrist that marked him as Alannys Harlaw, “So would’ve our mother.”

Theon sighed and looked down at the tattoo, almost an exact mirror of Yara’s. His sister knew what she was doing. If there was anything that could make Theon do something, it was the memory of their mother, who spent hours tattooing each of her children, who sang the history of the Isles to them, who was fiercer in the defense of her homeland than anyone. Every day, a little bit of his memory of her faded away – the way she wore her hair, what she smelled like, the exact sound of her laughter – but he never forgot how much she wished her children a better life than her own. “And if she doesn’t want to me to stay?” he asked after a few moments of silence, giving voice to the terrible thought that had been nagging him for weeks.

“Then she’s a fool and you will come back and make your home here,” Yara explained, “but I don’t think anyone would ever call Sansa Stark a fool.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are love! Please let me know what you think


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